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Cleaning up Gmail clutter

Sometimes we hate google but sometimes we really appreciate the services it provides.

Gmail is definetelly a blessing for anyone who has used email. In particular it has 3 features that are saving me lots of time everyday - archive, labels and filters.

Archiving
I am probably receiving 10-20 emails everyday which can amount to more than 300 emails at the end of the month. 300 emails in my inbox is what I consider a big mess. I could just mark anything not useful at the moment and hit the "archive" button but, I would just be cluttering my "archives" and it would only be obvious only later when looking in them for an old email.

Labeling
What I usually do is mark all the posts that are related and then from the "more actions" drop down I pick the appropriate label or create a "new label" and then archive them (alternativelly you can create labels in "settings > labels"). This way when you go back to your archives you can get all related posts with the press of a button.

Filtering
When my inbox has come to the point where picking the related posts is a mission just by itself, then its time to call filters to the rescue. Lets say you have a bunch of emails (from different people) related to a project.

Settings

filters > create new filter

insert into "from" field

partner1@domain.com | partner2@domain.com

press next (if you have inserted the parameters correctly gmail would have found all the related emails at this point)

mark "apply the label" and "choose the label" from the dropdown

make sure you mark "also apply filter to x conversations below"

create filter

Now you can just click on your label and from "more actions" choose "archive" to archive all this related emails.